Dr. FitzgGerald is a health-service researcher who has focused on policy analysis for orthopaedic procedures. Dr. FitzGerald completed his medical school at Tufts University in 1993 and completed his medical residency training at UCLA in 1996. He has served as chief medical resident prior to doing a specialty fellowship in rheumatology. Since 1999, Dr. Fitzgerald has been a faculty member in the Division of Rheumatology in the Department of Medicine.

Physicians

Dr. Altman received his medical education and training in internal medicine and rheumatology at the University of Miami in Florida. He was formerly a professor of medicine and orthopedics and chief of rheumatology at the University of Miami and chief of rheumatology and clinical director of the Geriatric Center at the Miami Veterans Administration Medical Center. Since 2003, Dr. Altman has been a member of the Division of Rheumatology and Immunology in the Department of Medicine. His recent research and clinical interests have been in osteoarthritis, Paget's disease of the bone and osteoporosis.

Dr. Brahn received his MD degree with Honors from the University of Chicago in 1978, and did his internal medicine residency at the University of California Medical Center, San Francisco. He then completed a rheumatology & immunology fellowship at Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women's Hospital, and continued on as a member of the Harvard Medical School faculty prior to joining UCLA in 1986. Dr. Brahn runs a biomedical research laboratory in molecular immunology as well as a clinical research program primarily interested in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. He is the chair of the Clinical Laboratories Executive Committee and director of the Rheumatology Training Program at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

Dr. Charles-Schoeman received her medical degree from the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, where she remained for training in both internal medicine and rheumatology. Dr. Charles-Schoeman has interests in inflammatory myositis and rheumatoid arthritis. She is a member of the Medical Advisory Board for the Myositis Association and pursues research in inflammatory myositis. She is also an active investigator in multiple clinical trials of novel therapies for rheumatoid arthritis and her research in this area includes the study of accelerated atherosclerosis in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Dr. Choi received her medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and completed her training in both internal medicine and rheumatology at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. Dr. Choi's clinical interests include complex autoimmune diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, osteoporosis, scleroderma, dermatomyositis, polymyositis, spondyloarthropathies, vasculitis and osteoarthritis.

Dr. Clements conducts clinical trials in scleroderma, and his research interest includes analysis of clinical features and response to therapies in scleroderma: emphasis on pulmonary interstitial disease and pulmonary hypertension.

Dr. Furst is the first Carl M. Pearson Professor in Rheumatology. He has been on a number of national committees concerned with rheumatic therapeutics, including as a member and fellow in the American College of Rheumatology and The American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics. Dr. Furst has published more than 400 articles and 12 books, including more than 180 research articles and more than 210 reviews or chapters, in addition to two editions of a book on scleroderma. Dr. Furst's areas of research interest include RA, scleroderma and polymyositis/dermatomyositis.

Dr. Gordon graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in Psychology, and received her medical degree from Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine. Her Internal Medicine residency was completed at Harbor-UCLA medical center, and she then went on to a two year fellowship in Rheumatology at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. Dr. Gordon’s clinical interests include: rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, osteoporosis, scleroderma, dermatomyositis, polymyositis, spondyloarthropathies, vasculitis and osteoarthritis.

Dr. Gorn is Clinical Professor of Medicine in Rheumatology. He received his MD from the Sackler School of Medicine and completed his internal medicine training at State University of New York and rheumatology training at Harvard Medical School. His clinical interests include complex autoimmune diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, osteoporosis, scleroderma, dermatomyositis, polymyositis, spondyloarthropathies, vasculitis and osteoarthritis.

Dr. Hahn received her M.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she later trained in rheumatology. She trained in internal medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Hahn heads research groups that do basic studies in the immune abnormalities that cause systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and is developing interventions that help restore the immune response to normal. She also heads a group that studies clinical problems in patients with SLE, including accelerated atherosclerosis and potential new therapies (clinical trials).

Dr. Kafaja received her MD in UCLA School of Medicine and completed internal medicine traing at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. She completed dermatology and rheumatology training at UCLA School of Medicine. Her research interest includes scleroderma and raynaud's phenomenon.

Dr. Marian Kaldas is a Southern California native and has been part of the UCLA family since her high school years when she won a scholarship for doing over 1000 hours of hospital volunteering. She received her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience at UCLA, her medical degree from the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and completed her internship, residency and fellowship in Rheumatology all with UCLA. She joined the UCLA Faculty practicing Rheumatology and Hospitalist medicine and is now excited to join UCLA Health practicing Rheumatology full-time.
Dr. Kaldas is interested in the treatment of the full spectrum of the rheumatic diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, gout, lupus and over 100 other conditions. Her other interests include humanism in medicine and teaching. Dr. Kaldas is board certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology.
In her spare time Dr. Kaldas enjoys reading, beach walks, singing and spending time with her husband and children.

Dr. Kermani received her medical degree from New York Medical College. She completed her residency in internal medicine and fellowship in rheumatology at Mayo Clinic, Minnesota. She then stayed on at Mayo Clinic and pursued an additional 2 years of clinical and research experience in the field of vasculitis through a prestigious fellowship awarded by the Vasculitis Clinical Research Consortium. Dr. Kermani is interested in general rheumatology. She maintains a special clinical interest in vasculitis.

Dr. King graduated from Harvard Medical School, and completed her internal medicine residency at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. After completing her rheumatology fellowship at UCLA, she has remained on faculty since 2008. Her clinical interests include general rheumatology, lupus, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma, musculoskeletal complaints and vasculitis. She has received multiple patient service awards for excellence in clinical care. Dr. King is a basic-clinical researcher with a special interest in understanding the pathogenesis of lupus and translating findings into relevant clinical therapeutic targets. Her special interests include studying autoimmune skin conditions and investigating the role of skin dendritic cells in vaccination strategies and principles of immune tolerance.

Dr. Louie received his medical education at Washington University, St. Louis, trained in medicine at John Hopkins and in rheumatology at UCLA. He was formerly chief of rheumatology at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. His expertise is in infectious, post-infectious, immune mediated and inflammatory rheumatic diseases. He is co-editor of the coming text, "Targeted Treatment of the Rheumatic Diseases," Elsevier 2009.

Dr. Martin grew up in Washington State. He attended the College of William and Mary in Virginia. Upon graduation, Dr. Martin was a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania for two years where he taught high school chemistry and biology. Later Dr. Martin attended medical school at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science/Chicago Medical School, in North Chicago, Illinois, graduating in 2006. He completed residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle and Rheumatology fellowship at UCLA.

Dr. McMahon graduated from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in 1997. She completed a residency in internal medicine at Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago in 2000, and also served as chief resident in medicine in 2001. Dr. McMahon completed a fellowship in rheumatology at UCLA in 2003 and received a master's degree in clinical research from UCLA in 2005. Her clinical interests include lupus, vasculitis and general rheumatology. She is an active investigator in multiple clinical trials of novel therapies for lupus. Her research interests also include the study of accelerated atherosclerosis in patients with lupus.

Dr. Masoom Modi completed her rheumatology training at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Originally from Northern California, she obtained her bachelor’s degree at the University of California at Berkeley. She attended medical school at St. George’s University School of Medicine, and completed internal medicine training at Maricopa Medical Center. Dr. Modi is an active member of the American College of Rheumatology. She enjoys participating in teaching activities with first year medical students at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her husband and dog.

Dr. Geraldine Navarro earned her medical degree from UCLA School of Medicine. She completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. She completed her fellowship in rheumatology at UCLA School of Medicine.

Dr. Paulus received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in Philadelphia and completed a rotating internship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He then served in as Captain, MC, in the U.S. Army Medical Corps and practiced family medicine in Minnesota before completing a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in rheumatology at VA Wadsworth Medical Center and UCLA Medical Center, studied biostatistics at UCLA, and in clinical pharmacology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, also in Los Angeles.

Dr. Ranganath is a native Los Angelean. After graduating from Drew/UCLA Medical School and completing her residency at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System in internal medicine, she returned to UCLA for Rheumatology Fellowship in 2003. She joined the UCLA faculty in 2005 and obtained a Masters in Clinical Research at UCLA in 2010. Dr. Ranganath has a strong interest in rheumatoid arthritis research. Her specific research goal is to develop a model to predict early response to therapy in RA with biomarkers, imaging markers (ultrasound and MRI), and clinical measures.

Dr. Singh trained in autoimmune diseases at All-India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi and in rheumatology at UCLA. He is particularly interested in managing and understanding inflammatory disorder that occurs in patients with lupus SLE), rheumatoid arthritis, myositits, scleroderma, anti-phospholipid syndrome, Sjogren's syndrome, and vasculitis. Dr. Singh provides consultation for patients with these diseases. His research on lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and scleroderma is funded by the National Institutes of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Lupus Foundation of America, Arthritis Foundation, and American College of Rheumatology Research and Education Foundation. Dr. Singh has served as a regular and ad-hoc member of several NIH Study Sections, and reviews grants for Arthritis Foundation, ACR REF, Dutch Arthritis Assocation, Swedish Knowledge Foundation, and Arthritis Research Campaign UK. He has published over 100 peer-revewied publications.

Dr. Taylor received her M.D. degree from the University of Medicine and Pharmacy Carol Davila in Bucharest, Romania, and completed her rheumatology fellowship at Loma Linda in June 2004. She practices general rheumatology, taking care of a variety of rheumatology conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, connective-tissue disorders, crystal arthritis such as gout and pseudogout, myofascial syndromes, polymyalgia rheumatica, and vasculitis. She performs ultrasounds of the joints and performs injections with hyaluronic acid for osteoarthritis. Her interests is in musculoskeletal sonography.

Dr. Volkmann graduated from Pomona College where she majored in Neuroscience and minored in Dance. She received her medical degree from UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and subsequently completed her residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Rheumatology at UCLA. During her fellowship, she participated in the Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) Program and earned her Master of Science degree in Clinical Research. Her clinical interests include systemic sclerosis, interstitial lung disease, pulmonary hypertension and systemic lupus erythematosus. Dr. Volkmann is an active clinical and translational researcher with a special focus on systemic sclerosis, and in particular, she investigates the pulmonary, gastrointestinal and vascular dimensions of this condition. She strives to provide humanistic and compassionate care, and she embraces complementary and alternative approaches to healing, in addition to traditional modalities.

Dr. Wong's research interest has been the cellular and molecular mechanisms of T-cells in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). She is currently working with Drs. Bevra Hahn, Steven Bensinger, and Antonio La Cava in investigating regulatory T-cells and the role of programmed death-1/programmed death-1 ligand (PD-1/PD-L1) pathway in SLE patients and mouse models for SLE.

Dr. David Yu has been a rheumatologist since 1973, and since 1980 specializing in the spondyloarthritis (ankylosing spondylitis, nonradiographic axial spondyloarthritis, undifferentiated spondyloarthritis, reactive arthritis). He is the major author on those sections in widely-used UpToDate textbook. He is a member of the ASAS and SPARTAN, organizations focusing on developing recommendations and guidelines in spondyloarthritis. Besides, spondyloarthritis, Dr. Yu also specializes in pain of the extremities, neck and back, and also those generalized to total body.

Research Faculty

Antonio La Cava, MD, PhD

Professor

Professor, Director of the FOCIS Center of Excellence at UCLA. Dr. La Cava received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the Federico II University of Naples, Italy, and did postdoctoral research at UCSD and The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, before joining UCLA as faculty in 2001. Dr. La Cava’s research interests focus on the development of new immunotherapies in systemic lupus erythematosus.

Betty Tsao, PhD

Professor

The focus of Dr. Betty Tsao's research program is the genetic contribution to human autoimmune disease, particularly systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Her group has devoted substantial effort in conducting genome wide association (GWA) and other genetics studies, which have led to the identification of over 40 genes that contribute to risk for this disease. This work has also highlighted key biologic pathways responsible for disease onset, which can inform more basic research to define the mechanism of these genetic associations. Towards this end, her team has been studying several genes, including TLR7 and IL10, gaining insights to what the specific causal functional variants are and how they relate to disease manifestations. Given the strong female bias of SLE, she is pursuing studies designed to better understand whether X-chromosome dosage and/ or X-linked genes contribute to the disease risk and organ damage. Her team is also working towards genetic contribution to ethnic differences in risk and outcome of SLE, with an emphasis in studying Asians.